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Milton Menasco  (1890 – 1974) was an
American  painting|painter and  art director of
silent Film|movies born in Los Angeles,
California.
Born in 1890 in Los Angeles, Menasco began his art
career in the early days of Hollywood and
described his work then as the "blood and thunder"
posters which enticed movie fans into theaters to
watch the first silent pictures. He was
commissioned for mural paintings at the Palace of
Fine Arts in San Francisco for the World's Fair in
1915.

His vivid use of colors and graphics won him
recognition in Hollywood, where he worked on 33
films--29 times as art director and twice as set
director. In 1925 he was the architecture and set
director for the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"The Lost World" film. This film received
accolades for its innovative art direction and
special effects. To quote one review in the
http://newtimes.rway.com/films/finalft.shtml
NewTimes: "And while Harry O. Hoyt is credited as
director, a host of fellow auteurs must take
credit for Lost World's still impressive thrills,
especially the effects work of Willis O'Brien (who
would later animate King Kong in 1933) and the
wild set design from Milton Menasco." A complete
list of Menasco's film credits is
http://www.m-menasco.com/film%20record.htm given
here.

In 1925 Menasco went to New York as art director
for a film making company and turned to
advertising. He also painted portraits and water
colors of horses and ships during this time which
he sold in the City's galleries. During World War
II, Life Magazine commissioned him to draw air and
sea battles to chronicle the wars in Europe and
the Pacific.

After the war, Mr. Menasco moved to Kentucky to
devote himself entirely to his real love, horse
portraiture. Here he painted the equine racing
greats of the nation and helped with art direction
at the Thoroughbred Record and Sporting News. He
and his wife purchased a farm where an old brick
house built in the 18th Century served for many
years as his studio. He delighted in the change of
the seasons, the beauty of the landscape, and the
variety of foliage and animal life that he
encountered there.

Horsemen admired the richness and feeling
reflected in Menasco's paintings, and his clients
included John Hay Whitney, Mrs. Dodge Sloane,
President Ronald Reagan and Mrs. Richard DuPont.
One of his first large paintings was for Mrs. Gene
Markey and included nine Calumet horses, Citation,
Coaltown, Bewitch and company, grouped in the
track with exercise boys up.

In 1953 he painted 'La Troienne' and Her Foals:
Eighteen Vignettes and One Painting Together in
One Frame for John Whitney. The painting was
exhibited at the New York Metropolitan Museum of
Art and the National Museum of Racing in Saratoga.
In 1999 it sold from the estate of Mrs. John Hay
Whitney through Sotheby's Auction House for 74,000
pounds (ca.$120,000).

In 1957, Menasco painted Doubledogdare and Delta
for A.B. Hancock Jr. The artist explained that
although the actual painting had taken him about
three months to complete, "behind it goes all the
training, study and experience of my life."

A distinguishing mark of Menasco's paintings is
the detail to sky and landscape backgrounds. A
perfect example of this detail is apparent in
Nashua, with Eddie Arcaro up, painted by Menasco
at Hialeah for Leslie Combs II. The background
shows the track and a ring of palm trees.

Mr. Menasco died died on June 7, 1974 of a heart
attack at his farm in Versailles, Kentucky. 
==External links==
*http://m-menasco.com/ Milton Menasco, some of the
paintings and drawings of Milton Menasco